The Menendez brothers could soon be released from prison after more than three decades behind bars.
A news conference will be held Wednesday in Los Angeles where the state is expected to announce a major development in the case against Erik and Lyle.
LA County District Attorney George Gascón personally invited some of the brothers’ relatives to attend the press conference. Vanity fair reported.
The family is reportedly hopeful that the prosecutor will consider seeking a revised sentence that would allow the brothers, now 53 and 56 years old, to walk free.
The Menendez brothers could soon be released from prison after more than three decades behind bars
The Menendez brothers spent seven months on the streets after killing their parents
Gascón recently said his office was investigating evidence that was not allowed in their trial, but insisted he was not committed anyway.
In particular, Gascon said he was looking into last year’s shocking allegations from Roy Rossello, a former member of the band Menudo, who alleged that Jose Menendez molested him as a teenager while working as a music manager in the 1980s.
The allegations opened the door to the Menendez brothers’ appeals over claims that critical evidence of their father’s alleged abuse was not admitted in their 1996 trial.
If they get a new trial, the Menendez brothers could be freed if a jury finds them guilty of voluntary manslaughter instead of murder, which would lead to their release because they have served more than the maximum sentence.
It comes amid renewed interest in the Erik and Lyle Menendez case thanks to two separate Netflix shows focused on their crimes.
The duo, then just 18 and 21, murdered their parents Jose and Mary Louise “Kitty” Menendez in their $1 million Beverly Hills home in August 1989.
They made a frantic call to police, claiming they came home from the theater to find their parents slaughtered, sparking fears in one of America’s wealthiest communities that a killer was on the run.
Police announced in March 1990 that they would arrest Lyle Menendez, seven months after the crime.
They said he was motivated by greed. The brothers would inherit fourteen million dollars from their parents, and began spending it shortly after their parents’ deaths.
Lyle bought a Porsche Carrera, a Rolex watch and two restaurants, while his brother hired a full-time tennis coach to compete in tournaments.
Erik, 51, has revealed that he found it absurd that the police working on the case did not arrest him and his brother at the scene of the crime
Lyle bought a Porsche Carrera, a Rolex watch and two restaurants in the immediate aftermath
In total, they spent $700,000 between their parents’ deaths and their arrests in March 1990.
But Erik stressed in the new Netflix documentary that it is “absurd” to suggest he was having a good time in the immediate aftermath of the murders.
“Everything was meant to cover up this terrible pain of not wanting to live anymore,” he said.
“One of the things that kept me from committing suicide was that I would be a complete failure to my father.”
The duo, then just 18 and 21, murdered their parents Jose and Mary Louise “Kitty” Menendez in their $1 million Beverly Hills home in August 1989.
The Netflix documentary revisits some of the most emotional details of the murder case, in which both brothers revealed that they were abused by their father and that their mother turned a blind eye to the abuse.
Lyle told the jury on the stand that he then in turn took his younger brother into the woods and molested him, doing to Erik what his father had done to him.
Erik said, “I remember him apologizing to me on the witness stand for bothering me. That was a devastating moment for me. He had never said he was sorry to me before.’
According to Erik, his father started abusing him when he was six years old, and the abuse continued for twelve years.